The story (Descent)
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The Pioneers mission is the third ship sent from Earth to expand humanity to the stars: about one million volunteers, mostly born in transit, nearing the end of their voyage to Calima, a habitable satellite of the planet Rubra Fulgur I, which orbits the red dwarf Rubra Fulgur. Calima is named for the permanent fog that caps visibility at a few dozen metres.
Aboard, almost all of life is spent in recreations: virtual experiences run by the ship's AI, Omega. People wake in turns for the vigil shifts, eat, meet in person, and go back. The crew is divided into three groups, the engineers, researchers and guardians, which Omega keeps in competition even in its games. How the ship's people live is told on The ship's society.
Kurt is an engineer, a pattern analyst, who suspects that arriving on a real planet will change nothing, and is not sure he wants it to. His friend Raina, a therapist, half believes that their whole reality is itself a recreation. The book opens three cycles before the arrival.
The ship does not arrive as planned. The title is literal: the descent to the surface ends Part 1, and the free edition stops there.